oh fuck okay. i am not planning this out at all, just writing the first thing that pops into my head, because that's served me well enough for the whole fic so far. for the record: this is all about my yolanda in growth, not about canon yolanda. this isn't a central part of the fic, but i love thinking about these characters so much.

so! like i said in the comments, yolanda isn't super religiously observant, and she's not super religiously observant in a very different way from how robby is not super religiously observant. robby was raised with religious judaism as a core part of his identity. he doesn't super believe in G-d, and he works through the high holy days (he will never admit that it's because he's too anxious to not be working on the high holy days - synagogues are full, that's a very high risk day), but in moments of stress, we see him turn to religion. i relate to this a lot - i discovered when i thought i was going to die that i also say the shema for a sense of grounding and connection (and also, like, because you say it before you die). who knew!

yolanda, on the other hand, didn't grow up in a religious household. her mother's mother is (was?) jewish, so they would sometimes celebrate holidays together - hanukkah, purim, pesach - but it was always more of a culture/heritage thing than a religion thing. she's obviously aware of the high holy days, but aside from eating honey cake, she didn't really do anything about them growing up. she celebrates christmas now (because her dad's family did, it was what they did at home), but she uses blue and white decorations on the christmas (chrismukkah) tree. she had one too many run-ins with the chabad rabbi near her university who loved telling her that she wasn't jewish enough because she's from a mixed family (fuck that guy), but she's comfortable with her identity, so finding a jewish community or being more religiously observant just aren't priorities. for her, it's about the little things she did growing up with her grandma. so she lights candles for all eight nights of hanukkah, and she dresses a little funny on purim (not like a full costume, but she'll do her makeup differently or something?).

kasha varnishkes was absolutely a staple at grandma's house (and it's grandma, not bubbe), as well as chicken soup with kreplach and latkes for hanukkah and... i can't decide if yolanda likes gefilte fish. she's mastered the art of making kreplach and latkes, but her kasha varnishkes always comes out wrong (she's using butter instead of schmaltz).

hamantaschen... oh man. she thinks they're dumb honestly. like, half of the fillings kinda suck, and they're annoying to make. she does like the chocolate ones, though, which i personally do not understand. frank once made her chocolate hamantaschen and she cried a little bit (her grandma had just died (i've written this far before deciding that her grandma is dead)) because they were genuinely perfectly shaped, and she'd only ever had ones that were falling apart before, and it brought up Feelings.